


Wisdom

by YumeArashi



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Addiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeArashi/pseuds/YumeArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonardo is fascinated by the Apple - perhaps too much so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> Set during AC2

After the misadventure with Savonarola, Ezio brought the Apple back to Leonardo’s Venezia workshop for a time, to see if perhaps the artist could help him think of some safer way of storing it.  Leonardo asked to see it, and Ezio saw no harm in indulging the artist’s curiosity.  He set the artifact on the workbench and headed upstairs to change out of his travel-stained clothes.

When he came back down, he found Leonardo with his hand on the apple, engrossed in wide-eyed wonder with the images flitting across the wall.  The assassin frowned. “Leonardo?” The older man didn’t respond, and Ezio’s frown grew.  He called the artist’s name louder, and Leonardo blinked and looked over at him, like a person coming awake.

“Ah, Ezio!  I have become convinced these images show us glimpses of the future, all the things mankind will become capable of in the years  to come,” he said enthusiastically.  “Is it not fascinating?  I am so excited to learn more!”

Ezio shook his head.  “I do not think that is such a good idea.  You yourself  said that the Apple was dangerous.”

“For normal minds, yes.  But you have seen that I was not overwhelmed by it.  I believe it is perfectly safe for me to use.”

“Even so, Altaïr wrote of the risk of becoming too absorbed.  And just now you did not respond when I called you.”

“I was merely distracted,” Leonardo insisted stubbornly.

“I can understand your interest.  But I must ask that you do not use it again.  Will you do this for me, amico?  Per favore?”

Reluctantly, Leonardo nodded.

 

* * *

 

The second time Ezio found Leonardo with the Apple, he began to grow concerned.  The artist was as honest as the day was long, it was not like him to do anything he’d agreed not to.  And far more worrying, this time Leonardo did not react at all when Ezio called his name, no matter how loudly.  It wasn’t until Ezio came over and put a hand on the artist’s shoulder that he started and looked around.

Leonardo looked instantly guilty at seeing the frowning assassin beside him.  “Mi dispiace, Ezio,” he apologized before Ezio could even say anything.  “I know you asked me not to, but I just wanted one more peek so badly.  I promise I won’t do it again.  Forgive me?”  he smiled winsomely.

Ezio never could say no to that smile.  “Of course I forgive you.  But I also worry about you.  You must realize that this is no good thing.”

But Leonardo laughed off his friend’s concerns.  “Ezio, I’m fine!  You know I am not like other people.  I can handle this knowledge.”

“Whether or not you can, this knowledge was never meant for mankind.  Not yet, at the least.”

“Come now,” Leonardo said persuasively, “Can you truly say that you are not even a little curious yourself?”

“I can,” Ezio said firmly, putting the Apple in his belt pouch.  “And however curious you might be, this needs to stop.  Promise me.”

Leonardo gave a disappointed sigh.”  All right, amico, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

In the days that followed, Ezio’s worry only grew.  Leonardo had always been easily distracted, his attention flitting from one topic to the next in leaps of mental agility that the assassin could never hope to follow.  But now he seemed restless, switching from one pursuit to another not because something new had caught his attention, but simply because he could not seem to focus.  He was more forgetful than usual as well, absent-minded to the point of seeming almost not to be present at all.  What was more, his temperament deteriorated, his normal unfailing affability increasingly replaced by irritability and impatience.  His work - much of it already late, as usual - suffered badly, with paintings and designs and even his ever-present sketchbook lying idle. 

Ezio almost wasn’t surprised to find Leonardo with the Apple a third time - but he was deeply troubled.  It was so entirely out of Leonardo’s character to go searching through a guest’s personal belongings, in violation of a promise he’d made, that Ezio would have considered it unthinkable previously. 

“Leonardo!” he shouted, rebuke sharp in his voice.  By now, he didn’t really expect a response, and indeed he received none.  But what he saw when he strode over to Leonardo’s side made his stomach twist. 

One the last two occasions, Leonardo had been absorbed in watching the Apple’s images flash past, but now his always-alert gaze was empty and unseeing, his normally animated face a blank mask.  Worse still, he didn’t react when Ezio shook his shoulder.  He didn’t react even when Ezio deactivated the Apple and put it away.

Worried, frustrated, and angry, Ezio shook Leonardo harder, but to no avail.  It wasn’t until, in his desperation, the assassin delivered a harsh slap across Leonardo’s face that the other man stumbled back, looking at Ezio with shocked reproach.

“I had no choice!” Ezio growled.  “You were so trapped within that…that _thing_ that I could not rouse you otherwise.  You might as well have been a doll for all the response I received.  Can you truly still insist that this is not a problem?”

Leonardo said nothing, but his expression was mulish.  While he evidently knew better than to voice his arguments, he clearly disagreed.

Ezio gave an exasperated sigh.  “Whatever you think, whether you see it or not, this will not stand.  Dio mio, look at yourself!  You cannot work, you barely eat or sleep - to say nothing of your temper!  Now I catch you in a lie, having gone through my things and broken a promise.  This is not like you,” he said urgently. 

Leonardo did look a little ashamed at that.  “I cannot argue that it was wrong to go back on my word or to look through your possessions.  For that, I am sorry.”

“But you are not sorry that you used the Apple again,” Ezio said flatly.

“You cannot understand the wonders I have seen!” Leonardo protested.  “Such knowledge that it takes my very breath away!  The things I could do with that knowledge - the miracles I could build, create, devise!  I could do so much good for mankind, Ezio,” he argued earnestly.

Ezio shook his head.  “I know that you would never intentionally use the knowledge for ill, amico.  But see where this thirst for it has led you.  I do not blame you - if anything, I blame myself for not realizing that your curiosity could only result in this.  I should have secured the Apple a long time ago.”

“You do not mean that you are sending it away?” Leonardo asked, visibly distressed by the thought.

“I have to, for your sake.”

“No, you cannot!” Leonardo cried.  “There is still so much for me to learn!  You cannot take it away from me!”

“Every word convinces me all the more that this is necessary,” Ezio said firmly.  “You are already too much obsessed by it.  Taking it away now will be the only thing that can help you.”

“I do not need help!” Leonardo shouted.  “I need knowledge, the knowledge that only the Apple can give me!”

Ezio shook his head once more, and his dark eyes held sorrow.  “I am leaving now,” he said, gently but inexorably.  “I will return as soon as I can, and I will no longer have it with me.  You need not try to follow me, or learn where it is - even I will not know exactly.”

“Please, Ezio,” Leonardo begged unhappily.  “Please don’t do this.”

The pleading was harder to deny than all of Leonardo’s vehement contentions, but Ezio stood his ground.  This small cruelty was far better than standing aside and letting Leonardo ruin himself.  “I am sorry, Leonardo,” he said quietly as he turned and headed for the door.  “But I truly believe that this is for your own good.”

 

* * *

 

If Ezio had thought that Leonardo was ill-tempered before, the artist was nothing less than insufferable upon Ezio’s return.  Irritability had progressed into downright surliness, with Leonardo taking his displeasure out on all those around him - particularly Ezio.

The assassin bore the abuse in stoic silence, doing his best to keep Leonardo away from others who might not be so understanding.  He kept a sharp eye on his friend, making sure that Leonardo didn’t try to figure out where the Apple was - or worse, try to go after it himself.  The close watch made Leonardo all the more irate, particularly because Ezio had in fact caught him at it on more than one occasion.  Even when turned out red-handed, he fumed and reviled Ezio for not trusting him.

In addition to his foul moods, Leonardo took no interest in anything:  not his work, nor his personal projects, nor even taking care of himself.  It fell to Ezio to coax the moody artist to eat, sleep, and tend to himself, and to try to fill Leonardo’s time with conversation, games, or other pursuits.  Needless to say, his attempts were not generally welcomed.  Leonardo slept poorly, ate little, and on the rare occasions when he was agreeable to any pastimes that Ezio suggested, he lost interest quickly and abandoned the activity.

It was difficult for Ezio to see his oldest friend like this.  The behavior was so alien to Leonardo’s gentle, amiable nature that it was painful to wonder if it would ever fade.  The hardest part of all lay in knowing that there was so little he could do for the other man.  Ezio had not felt this helpless about anything since his father and brothers had been hanged, and it was not something he had ever wanted to feel again.

But little by little, there were signs of improvement.  Leonardo’s intractable anger slowly faded to a tired but biddable apathy.  Not much of an improvement, perhaps, but an improvement still.  It was a victory long in coming when one day, over a halfhearted chess game, Leonardo quietly said, “I’ve been acting terribly, haven’t I?”

“The fault is not yours,” Ezio reassured him quickly.  “The Apple poisoned your mind.  Altaïr was right to warn of its dangers.”

“I thought I could handle it,” Leonardo admitted softly.  “I thought the danger lay in the vast amount of knowledge overwhelming the human mind.  Because it was not too much for me, in my arrogance I thought there was no harm.  I never realized that for me, the danger lay not in the knowledge itself, but in my need for it.”

“It is in your nature to be curious, who could condemn you for that?” Ezio asked.  “It is that same need to know, the same drive to find answers to questions most of us don’t even think to ask, that makes you so brilliant.  If fault must be assigned to anyone, lay the blame at my feet.  I should have known that such a thing would inevitably have been too cruel a temptation for you.”

Leonardo shook his head.  “You thought I was stronger.  So did I.”  He smiled, but the expression was self-deprecating.  “I suppose I should have known that answers never come that easy.”

“Perhaps not, but is that not what makes them so rewarding to uncover?” Ezio asked.  “Do you not learn as much from seeking the answers as finding them?  I could name any number of times when you’ve been trying to figure something out and stumbled across something only barely related.  With you there is always something new to discover, to learn, to explore.  You do not need the Apple for that.”

Leonardo considered that.  “I suppose you were right,” he said slowly, “that this knowledge was not meant for us.  I did not think that there could be anything wrong with knowledge for its own sake, but perhaps we are meant to find things out in our own time.”

Ezio nodded, encouraged.  “Even at the worst, you still wanted to use the knowledge for the good of mankind.  But who knows whether that might have changed?  And even if it had not, even with the Apple we cannot see all ends.  If you are right and that knowledge came from a time decades or centuries from now, who knows what damage it might have done to use it now?”

“Yes,” Leonardo agreed, and though there was regret in his voice, it was for what he now knew he could never have.  “It is well that you took it away.  It is difficult, but….I am glad that it is gone.  I will go back to my painting, my designs, my studies.  I was content, once, to learn about the world thus.  I can be again.”

Ezio smiled at his friend, relieved.  “And in that choice, amico, you show a wisdom that all the Apple’s knowledge could never impart.”


End file.
